


It belongs to me

by Lucidlucy



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 2016 Reylux Tropesgiving Exchange, Gen, If Maz could have it for no reason, Kylo is obsessed as always, Prompt: Orphan's Plot Trinket, Rey is a desert mouse, There's no Netflix on Jakku, This is cracky at best, Tropesgiving, and Hux is bored, then it can be on Jakku instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 02:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8730586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucidlucy/pseuds/Lucidlucy
Summary: Rey stumbles upon a very shiny metal rod and the world tilts on its axis.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Squankmuffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squankmuffin/gifts).



> What would have happened if Rey's journey had not started because of BB-8, but Luke's saber?  
> (Or, in another words, if Maz can have Luke's saber for no reason then damn it, it can be on Jakku instead). 
> 
> Prompt: Orphan's Plot Trinket

It holds value, that much she knows. She had spent her life looking for valuable things, after all, digging under so many layers of grime and slime, searching for that fabled needle in the haystack, hoping to turn it into a meal. She just needs Plutt to see it the way she does. Rey holds her breath for his verdict while he turns the long metal rod in his hands, fat fingers leaving oily fingerprints in his wake. _This_ could feed her for a month.

Plutt only hems and haws, beady eyes narrowed against the glare of Jakku’s sun glinting off the chrome handle of… well… Rey isn’t sure what it is, exactly. She’d stumbled on it, not scavenged it. It looks nothing like the usual parts she pries off long-dead star destroyers, but it’s in good condition. That alone had been a surprise, finding such a well kept part inside the belly of a twenty-nine year old dead star destroyer. Given where she’d found it, it _couldn’t_ be new, though it certainly shone as if it were.

“This is worth ten portions,” Plutt finally declares, greed painted all over his face.

Ten portions. Certainly not enough to feed her for a month. Maybe if she rationed well, made it stretch—

No.

Rey snatches the thing from Plutt’s hand and holds onto it tightly in her gloved hands, much to the creature’s discontent as he turns a sickly shade of green, scrunching up his face in preparation to scream at her. Rey cuts him off immediately.

“I changed my mind. It’s not for sale.” She informs him, quickly stashing the rod into her satchel and securing it in front of her, just in case. Plutt had been known to chase people down with his thugs when he wanted something bad enough.

“You impertinent little—Ten portions is more than the thing’s worth!” Plutt sputters.

Once upon a time she would have remained meekly silent, averted her eyes, and let Plutt get away with what he wanted. Today would not be one of those days. She’s hungry, tired, and irritated, a dehydration-induced headache throbbing its way to life at her right temple.

“I’ll go to another outpost. I’m sure I could fetch a better deal,” she says, immediately backing away and turning on her heel before Plutt can say anything.

It’s too bad, really, the next outpost on Jakku would take a half-day ride on her speeder, and the sun’s still too high. Rey shields her eyes up at the cloudless sky, trying to gauge how long she’d have to wait it out at Niima when she sees a shuttle, black and ominously birdlike, preparing to descend. It’s followed by four other ships. Rey lets her hand drop.

She can almost hear the death march in her head. Military on Jakku has never meant good news. The wreckage of Star Destroyers from the last Battle of Endor, wreckage she now depends on to _live_ , is a testament to that.

She should leave. Any smart person would make themselves scarce _now_ . Sticking around is a _very_ stupid idea if things go south, and she has a hunch that they might. Why else would military ships be landing on Niima? But leaving now _might_ just also put a target on her back: a lone speeder chasing out of Niima just as military ships are landing doesn’t look good, even if she’s not guilty of anything.

 _Ugh, quit it with the paranoia, Rey_.

The sound of ion engines roars in the air, the ships cutting off access to her speeder as they land between her and her only mode of transportation. She’d taken too long. The air stills, neat lines of stormtroopers filing out and standing at attention as the ramp to the bird-like ship lowers slowly. Rey catches a glimpse of two figures, long legs and torsos in all black — a stupid idea in this infernal heat — before doing a sharp about turn before she can see their faces.

 _Nevermind, then_ , she thinks wryly. There’s no way she’s walking in that direction now. She heads instead for the cleaning table, snatching a drab scarf from a distracted vendor’s stall and wrapping it around her head, panic rising in her throat as she sits down. She has nothing to clean except the shiny metal thing.

Rey’s fingers twitch in her leather gloves, digging in her pack for the long, chrome rod, all while watching out of the corner of her eye as the two men in black approach Plutt’s stall followed by stormtroopers. They pass by close enough that Rey can hear one of them speaking with dripping sarcasm.

“Why am I accompanying you and why are we stopping at an outpost, you ask? Because the last time I sent you to Jakku on your own, you managed to light up a village like a bonfire and still _returned with nothing_ , Ren. I’m here to make sure your incompetence doesn’t finally get us both killed.”

“Says the man who lost both the prisoner _and_ a stormtrooper from under his nose.”

“Yes, the pilot you captured while _also failing to capture his_ BB-unit. Somebody here might have seen it.”

Rey keeps her eyes downcast despite the fear coiling up in her gut. A village had been attacked? She hadn’t heard anything about it—

—her train of thought is interrupted when a Teedo slams its stick on the table, telling her in very unfriendly terms to get back to work.

Rey breathes in deep, reaching out instinctively for her staff, just in case, then removes her leather gloves while watching the newcomers. She can only see the back of their heads, but they tower above everybody else. One is cloaked, the other has coppery red hair so bright it shines like a torch. Rey looks back down at the rod on the table. There’s no need to clean it, but she needs to keep her hands moving.

She’s about to make a grab for it when her ears pick up on Plutt’s annoyed tone.

“If you’re looking for that girl, I’ll tell you the same thing I told the _last_ pair of people looking for her –– She’s _not_ here. She just left, that grating little wench. Something about trading that shiny rod of hers at another outpost—”

_The girl? Did he mean me? There were others looking for me?_

“What girl?” says the cloaked man, and though she can’t see his face, his voice sounds… mechanical? Rey cringes internally at the monstrous sound, shoulders tensing further as she replays Plutt’s words in her mind.

_My family? Was it my family? Why didn’t Plutt ever tell—_

—Something smacks into her back, The Teedo having returned. This time it clanks its stick against the table so hard multiple eyes turn to look at her. Rey hunches in on herself, but the Teedo’s not done. This time it wants to make itself _clear_ , so it yanks the scarf off her head to get her attention and starts shouting at her to _get to work_ , its garbled, dissatisfied speech an annoyed shrill.

“...That girl,” Plutt sneers, having gotten past his surprise. Perhaps it is out of curiosity that the two men turn to look in Rey’s direction, but Rey bows her head down nonetheless and grabs for the chrome rod, determined to not call further attention to herself.

And then the world tilts on its axis.

One after another, flashes of things she’s never experienced crash through her in quick succession: sterile ship halls turning to fire, a field of dead men under the rain, and a monster looking straight at her. The cries of a child she vaguely recognizes reach her ears, and then once again a monster cloaked in black, a sword of fire, and––

The next thing she knows, her head bounces off the ground. She’d fallen from her seat in her haste to get up, her heart beating out of her chest. She looks around. Everything’s gone deadly silent. Rey scrambles back from where she’d fallen, untangling herself from the bench with her heart in her throat, which is just as well. It helps muffle the scream trying to tear out of her when her eyes catch a glimpse of the cloaked man’s raptor-like mask. The cloaked man she had just seen inside her head. The one now marching towards her.

“I feel it…” he says as he approaches, threatening to swallow up the sun in darkness, and people begin to scream.

They scramble out of the way to avoid the tables flying out of the monster’s path. The Teedo next to her screams. It hovers in the air then gets shoved by an invisible hand. Rey scrambles to her feet, grabbing both her staff and her meal ticket (which thankfully gives her no weird visions this time), before running. Her speeder would be too slow, but she could steal a ship and—

—she freezes.

Every bit of muscle in her twitches for her to _run,_ but Rey can’t move, her body stilling against her will. The rush of her blood drums in her ears with every single one of her heartbeats, her lungs struggle to bring in air, her erratic pulse beats higher and faster with the sound of ever approaching steps, and Rey starts praying.

“Really, Ren?” there’s voice from behind her. “We’re not here to _play_. We need a droid, not a girl.”

“The girl.” the monster named Ren repeats, circling her once before bending to her eye-level. It is a man’s voice. He’s so close she can almost see a pair of eyes behind the visor, but his modulated voice is distracting. “Where did you find this?”

Every sound, every breath, whether his or her own, turns like white noise in her panic. It only intensifies when the monster lifts up a giant gloved hand, the chrome rod caged in his grasp.

“What does it matter?” she finally says, swallowing past her fear.

“It does,” he replies. She tries to wiggle out of whatever it is that’s holding her up, only for the second man to come into her field of vision as he awkwardly navigates the sand floor, unnaturally pale skin reddening by the second even under the shade of the tent. It almost matches his hair.  

“Ren,” he says, “We have no time for this.”

“Do you know what it is?” Ren says, ignoring his companion. “What I hold in my hands?”

“What’s with the interrogation? And again, what does it matter?” she spits back, fear giving way to anger the longer she struggles against the invisible hold as he dangles her new prized possession in front of her face. “It belongs to me.”

The creature steps back, tilting his head slightly.

“We’ll see about that.”

A sweep of a gloved hand and darkness begins to overtake her. Her body goes limp, gravity pulling her towards her rightful place on the sand. Somewhere in the depths of her mind, bundled up in her panic and the realization that she might just die as a strong pair of arms catch her, Rey regrets not leaving when she had the chance.

*

“You’re an idiot,” Hux clips, climbing up the ramp ahead of Kylo Ren and refusing to look at the oaf hauling up the grimy girl he’d taken such an interest, the new saber cradled in her lap and Ren carrying them both as if they were precious cargo.

Perhaps they are, but Hux can scarcely care. The only things he cares about are getting back to an air conditioned, _clean_ environment, away from that pit of filth the locals dare call an _outpost_. He scoffs, dusting his arms of the thin layer of sand now clinging to everything.

“She touched the Force,” Ren explains, though he gives Hux nothing else.

“Unless she knows where the droid is, she’s of little use to me,” Hux says, irritation rising the longer he tries to rid himself of the dust clinging to his neck, thinking longingly of his rooms aboard the Finalizer.

“Not everything is about you, Hux,” Kylo replies.

“Isn’t it?” Hux sneers. “Enough of this stupid game. I’m sending out troops, then we can leave this backwater dump immediately. Do what you want with the girl then _ditch_ her. I refuse to bring this filth back to my ship.”

The only response he gets is Ren’s modulated breathing, uncaring of whatever plans the Knight is already formulating in his head. If what Ren wants is a little mouse to play with and bed, that would be his problem, but Hux has _work_ to do. He turns around and leaves at a hard clip.

*

Rey wakes up shivering in a tiny room atop a cot with a hard mattress, the draft of air conditioning too foreign to a body used to scorching heat. She looks around, trying to adjust to the dim lighting. Then her eyes stop on the corner, on the seat where the monster sits, blending in perfectly with his surroundings.

“You’re awake,” he says, fingers twined leisurely on his abdomen, his elbows on the armrests, and with his cowl thrown back Rey can see that it is a helmet, not a mask, dark hair peeking from under the rim. _Man, after all, not monster._ Her imagination immediately starts imagining the monstrous disfigurements would force him to wear a helmet even inside.

“Who are you?” she asks, pushing herself against the wall. It’s cold but it puts some distance between them, however small.

“Does it matter?” he says, his voice taking on the same aggressive tone she’d used before.

_He’s playing with me, the karking—_

_“Tsk_ ,” he says, as if reading her mind. “No need to be rude. You’re my guest here. Are you comfortable?”

Rey purses her lips.

“Where is my part?”

“Your what?” he asks, tilting his head.

“The– the part! You know, the thing! The one you took from me?” she asks, fisting her hands into the sheets underneath her. The monster laughs.

“You don’t even know what it is.” He says. “I could teach you more about it. You should know what it is you’re trying to sell away, no?”

Rey snorts, the words slipping out before she can take them back. “I don’t make it a point to take lessons from monsters––”

Her eyes widen when the last consonant escapes her lips. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud.  She waits for him to freeze her again, or to bring on the pain somehow. Instead, he tilts his head the same way he’d done before, then slowly reaches up towards his helmet. His thumbs hook under the rim, and when the front of his helmet decompresses with a hiss, her pulse slows, a sick, twisted part of her wanting to see the charred skin and gruesome scars.

What greets her instead is a handsome, sensible face framed by a crown of raven hair, skin freckled with tiny moles, as pale as the redhead though certainly less severe. Rey gapes.

“Better?” he asks, placing the helmet at his feet then resting his elbows on his knees, wide, pouty lips twitching in a semblance of a smile. A _self-satisfied_ smile.

“Hardly,” she replies, refusing to let him gain the upper hand. The man before her chuckles.

“Hmm.” he hums, “what’s your name, little desert mouse?”

“That’s hardly relevant,” she retorts, tilting her head back to look at him down her nose. “You have something of mine. Return it and let me go immediately.”

*

  
Hux leans back into the pilot seat, resting his chin on the back of his wrist, eyes on the data pad perched on his knee. He has no business hacking into the mainframe and turning on the security camera aboard Kylo Ren’s shuttle, of all things, but Hux could hardly deny that he’s curious… and bored.

Oh, he’s still annoyed, but he’d begrudgingly admitted to himself that searching for the droid in the middle of the day would hardly help. His troops would die of heat exhaustion, and he had no intentions of going out there himself, which had surprisingly left him with very little to do until nightfall. So Hux had sat back to watch as Kylo kept vigil over the sleeping girl in silence, wondering why he’d bothered to begin with. Yet his intrusion had been rewarded once the girl had woken up.

“ _Hardly,_ ” she says, and Hux smirks. He has to give it to her, she’s very witty. Hux couldn’t see why Ren was interested before -- _still_ can’t -- but she’s becoming more and more interesting by the second.

The rest of their exchange goes in the same fashion. Ren asks vague questions about the _thing_ he picked up –– which even Hux knows to be a lightsaber –– and who she is, and what she’s doing in this pit of boiling hell called Jakku, and the girl responds with even more smart-ass remarks, and Hux finds himself chuckling. Ren is surprisingly gentle with her through it all, even when he leans in to try and brush a curl of hair away from her face and she makes a biting motion at him, showing sharp little teeth.

Then the girl’s stomach growls so loud that Hux hears it through the data pad.  Hux snorts.

“Hungry?” Kylo asks. The girl tilts her chin up and glares at him, and Hux finds himself cheering for her just a little. Few people could look at Kylo Ren in the eye, much less do so defiantly.

“Of course she’s hungry, Ren,” Hux murmurs to himself without thinking. “Have you looked at her closely?”

Hux smiles despite himself, watching the desert mouse and Kylo Ren trade verbal blows. It certainly fills his time with something more entertaining than watching sand. How anyone could live in such a junkyard is beyond him.

Then his comm beeps.

 _Ah, that’s too bad_ , he thinks, setting the datapad down and making his way towards Ren’s room. It was fun while it lasted.

*

Rey jumps when the doors open, both she and Ren — she _had_ heard _Ren,_ right? — turning towards the sound. _The other man_ (as Rey has taken to thinking of him) steps forward, allowing Rey to finally get a good look at him.

He stands tall, and proud, and stares down his nose at the both of them. Ren looks entirely unfazed, but Rey shrinks back against the wall a little further. There’s something about the way those colorless eyes take her in that’s unsettling.

“What is it, Hux?”

Hux turns his attention on Ren, his lip curling up slightly with contempt before it quickly disappears.

“I just received notification that the droid was spotted heading west,” he says, delivering the news mechanically.

“I leave it to you,” Ren says, turning his eyes on Rey. Hux clears his throat, snatching back Ren’s attention, and Rey watches with curiosity. There’s obvious animosity between the two, clear in the way the words end on a sharp edge, the way they refuse to quite acknowledge each other.

“Ah, no,” Hux says, crossing his arms. “You were the one who said you wanted the map. You’re the one who lost it from right under your nose the last time. Go fetch.”

Ren turns his head slowly to look at Hux, a silent staring match drawing out until Ren finally lifts himself from his seat and dons his helmet. He un-hitches something from his belt and slams it into Hux’s chest.

“You hold onto this. Do not let her get her hands on it, and do not let her leave. She’s mine. Am I clear?”

Hux arches an eyebrow. “Crystal.”

Ren bumps Hux’s shoulder as he departs, a petty move if Rey had ever seen one, and Hux turns to watch him leave, scoffing when the sound of footsteps disappears before he looks Rey, as if remembering she’s sitting there. Annoyance flares in her at the obvious disregard, but Hux either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as he takes the seat previously occupied by Ren. The door remains wide open.

“So, you’re the girl Kylo’s suddenly obsessed with,” he says for a greeting, the hairs on the back of Rey’s hairs standing. “What is your name?”

“Why do you people care so much what my name is?” she finally blurts out, fisting her hands back into the sheets.

She should make a run for it now, but the man before her somehow looks as dangerous as Ren himself, perhaps because the door’s wide open and he doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. Confident in his skills to take her down if she tried? She decides then and there that messing with this man would be a bad idea.

“Who knows about Ren? As for me, it’s the polite thing to ask, I suppose,” he replies. So he hadn’t cared about her name, after all. Hux crosses his legs and leans back, studying her silently while thumbing the chrome handle of _her_ found treasure lazily. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it. It’s mine. That’s all you need to know.”

Hux smiles, waiting for her to break in the wake of his silence, but Rey resolutely keeps her mouth shut. When it’s obvious he’s not getting another word out of her, he sighs.

“This is a lightsaber,” he explains, “There are very few of them left. It’s rather... curious... to _find_ one in such a junkyard, don’t you think?”

Rey gapes at him, more so at his insulting what has, for over fourteen years, been her _home_. But also at the information.

“A lightsaber? Like in the stories?” she asks, trying not to sound too ignorant.

“...Like in the stories,” he agrees with a smile. An amused, condescending smile. Rey cringes. She’d sounded exactly as ignorant as she’d feared. “So how did you come across one?”

“I told you, I found it.”

Hux hums noncommittally, thumbing the saber again, but whatever else he’s about to say is interrupted when her stomach growls.

*

Hux looks up at the sound of angry gurgling, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from chuckling. He’d been already deep in thought, connecting the possible dots. This saber could only belong to one other person, if Kylo’s interest was any indication: Skywalker. And where there is a saber belonging to Skywalker…

Then the girl’s growling stomach had broken through his reverie.

“Hungry?” he repeats Ren’s words. The girl only looks at him as if eyeing a suspicious substance. Hux arches an eyebrow, unable to stop himself from toying with her. “Ah, perhaps not. I was going to offer some of our rations but—”

“Wait!” she interrupts him immediately, her cheeks coloring. “I— really?”

Hux tilts his head, suppressing a smile. “Yes. You have to admit it first, however.”

“Admit what?” she asks, confusion painted clearly on her face.

“That you’re hungry.”

“That’s all?” she asks, the confusion is replaced by mistrust.

Hux smiles. He _shouldn’t_ be playing with Ren’s new prisoner, in fact, he shouldn’t even be _sitting_ there, but it’s surprisingly easy to now that he’s there and she’s actually talking to him. Plus he could hardly deny that getting her to admit to something she’d refused Ren would be oddly satisfying. She purses her lips then sighs.

“I’m hungry.”

Of course she is. Her stomach gurgles as if on cue.

“Good girl.” he praises. He really needs to get off Jakku. Boredom does not suit him well. It makes him do things like these. Still… “Follow me.”

Hux walks out and waits for her to follow, holding the saber lightly at his side. She doesn’t try to snatch it, which surprises him, given that she knows it’s a weapon, so when he gets to the panel where the food portions are stashed, he decides to reward her for it. He opens it up and points to the food rations inside: synth-bread and dried meat and fruits, and some sort of awful just-add-water gruel reserved for long trips.

“You can have as much as you can carry.”

The girl looks at him with open distrust, but when he makes no move to stop her, her opportunism kicks in and she grabs the tail-end of the fabric thrown over her shirt, turning it into makeshift pouch. She takes _everything_. By the end of it, the cubby hole sits empty.

Well, he _did_ say as much as she can carry.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, arms weighed down with her new loot.

 _Why_ is _he?_

Hux looks over at the pilot’s seat where his data pad rests.

“Ren’s sudden interest in you wasted precious time out of my day and hindered my job. Then again… you provided me with... entertainment.” He says, tapping his fingers on the saber. “Consider it payment. And payback for Ren. _”_

“I suppose he deserves it,” she sniffs but then the corners of her lips lift in the semblance of a smile, tugging a string somewhere inside him: a sudden fondness for her mischief. He looks at the saber again.

“If you stick around, Ren will be entirely useless. Perhaps I should get rid of you now.” He lifts his eyes to look at her, finding fear in her eyes, so he points towards the closed ramp with the saber, turning to walk towards it. He has no need for a teenage child, one who held nothing of value to him, and she’d already slowed them down enough. “You can go. Though I can hardly give this back.”

She follows quietly on her feet, the only sound that of the plastic wrappers of food portions rubbing together with her every step. This is a _terrible_ idea, really, but he’d been made to waste time, so Hux would, naturally, pay Ren back in kind. It is always _so_ very gratifying to take away Ren’s play things. Hux punches the button to the ramp.

“Won’t he know you let me go?” she asks over the sound of the lowering ramp, words laced with wariness. She’s like a little livewire, all pent up energy and anxiety, eyes shifting and head turning at every minute sound on the ship. Hux makes a show of considering her question, before sniffing.

“He’s nothing I cannot handle,” he says, but she’s already looking out the ramp towards the desert she calls home. “Now, a small thing before you leave. Consider it payment for your freedom. What’s your name?”

She frowns, her eyes falling down to her food as if wondering if he’ll take it for not answering, then out towards the darkness again before she looks at him with bright eyes, hazel and warm, an innocent mirage that hides something deadly underneath, much like the planet she comes from. A single word comes to mind: shrewdness. Shrewdness and a desire to survive that reminds him a little of himself.

“Why are you interested?” she asks, refusing to give up ground.

“I find myself suddenly curious. How about a deal? you tell me your name, I give you this. I have no need for it, really.” He holds up the lightsaber. “Fair exchange, no?”

Her eyes light up. He watches as she debates with herself for a minute longer, looking at the food in her arms as if wondering if just that is enough, then at the saber again, and he sees the draw to survival painted on her features: selling this thing could continue to feed her for a long time yet, especially now that she knows what it is.

“Rey,” she responds.

Hux grins, attempting for friendliness though internally it’s mostly self-satisfaction. Another thing he’s snatched from under Ren. He places the saber gently atop her pile of food and motions with an open palm towards the now open ramp.

“Thank you, Rey,” he says cordially, already anticipating the temper tantrum Kylo Ren would throw. He would have to fake being overpowered by the girl, probably, but ah, it would be worth it. Her taking the portions would only cement his story. Rey frowns at him, confused as to why she’s even being let go of to begin with, but curiosity gets the best of her.

“And you? Who are you?” she asks.

“Nobody important,” he replies, threading his fingers behind his back to keep the General’s bars out of sight. “You should go now.”

She nods, bolting as fast as her slender legs can carry her, only looking over her shoulder back at him before disappearing into the darkness. Hux smiles, letting his hands fall back to his side, displaying his rank proudly on his sleeve. He’s not sure why he’d hidden the bars, though it hardly seems to matter now. This is sure to send Kylo into a fury, and he’ll enjoy watching every minute of it. As for the girl….

He’s sure he’ll see her again, knowing full well Kylo would chase her to the ends of Jakku to get that saber back. In fact, he’s looking forward to it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> MY APOLOGIES FOR THE LACK OF FLUFF/SMUT/ANGST. This is literally the crackiest thing ever and Hux is petty af. It does read a little like the opening to a new long-fic, doesn't it? hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. 
> 
> Thank you for my prompt to Squanky <3 you're amazing and I love you. I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS RANDOM PIECE OF TRASH. I might make it longer eventually to fit the 2nd prompt of yours, if you remember what it is ;) Also, how do people even do words with a 5k limit? I can't. Ugh.


End file.
